Alameda County is seeking to dismiss a whistle-blower lawsuit alleging widespread fraud, conspiracy and financial misconduct in the county’s public hospital system.

The lawsuit was filed a year ago, in March 2006, under seal in Alameda County Superior Court. The filings were unsealed this week at the prompting of MediaNews.

The legal action was brought by Betty Rowe, the mother of Gwen Rowe-Lee Sykes, an ousted trustee of the Alameda County Medical Center. Betty Rowe is named in the suit as a so-called qui tam plaintiff — a whistle-blower — under the False Claims Act.

The False Claims Act allows a private individual with knowledge of past or present fraud on the federal government to sue on behalf of the government to recover stiff civil penalties and triple damages. Such actions against false claims for payment are filed under seal pending a decision by the state or county to intervene as plaintiff.

The case, Alameda County, State of California et al. v. Cambio Health Solutions et al, is seeking unspecified damageson behalf of taxpayers for alleged fraudulent acts committed by administrators, trustees, consultants, physicians and others at the Alameda County Medical Center.

The medical center is the county’s safety net public health care system and includes Highland Hospital in Oakland, John George Psychiatric Pavilion and Fairmont Hospital in San Leandro, and clinics in Oakland, Newark and Hayward.

The lawsuit describes the medical center as an “unmitigated disaster” and the “equivalent of Enron.” Among the allegations made in the complaint:

-Fraudulent billing and improper receipt of $2.4 million by Cambio Health Solutions, a hospital consulting firm hired on an initial $3.2 million contract to turn around the medical center in 2004 and 2005;

-Fraudulent billing practices including double billing by OakCare Medical Group, which provides some physician services to the medical center;

54-page complaint filed by Betty Rowe, Alameda County in September hired a San Francisco law firm, Rogers Joseph O’Donnell, which specializes in government contract and qui tam litigation, to investigate the allegations.

The firm reviewed county and medical center documents as well as those provided by the plaintiff. The legal team interviewed 25 people connected to the lawsuit.

“We interviewed a lot of folks,” attorney Allan J. Joseph said. “Some of these allegations were just not true.”

On Feb. 15, the county filed a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, along with a 40-page appendix detailing each allegation and the results of its investigation.

“A number of the allegations refer to policy issues,” Joseph said. “That’s just not an actionable claim under the False Claims Act.”

The county is also seeking dismissal of the suit on the grounds that Betty Rowe does not meet the legal requirements of whistleblower status because she is not the original source of the allegations but heard them second-hand from her daughter. Rowe is a retired nurse.

“You can’t be a whistleblower if you’re blowing a second toot,” Joseph said.

The attorney for Betty Rowe, Hab Siam, did not respond to repeated phone messages and

e-mails over several days seeking comment.

Sykes was removed from the medical center’s Board of Trustees on March 15, 2006, in a vote by the county Board of Supervisors. A month earlier, County Supervisor Keith Carson, who originally appointed Sykes to the unpaid trustee role, sought to unseat her on the grounds that she had become ineffective.

Carson is also named in the suit for allegedly conspiring to defraud the medical center.

Sykes was ousted by the Board of Supervisors less than two weeks after her mother’s whistleblower case was filed under seal March 3, 2006.

Sykes is being represented by Siam in another lawsuit challenging her removal as trustee. She has said she was ousted because she raised questions about financial activities at the medical center.

The county Board of Supervisors and the medical center Board of Trustees voted in closed session to seek dismissal of the whistleblower suit based on their law firm’s findings, according to court documents.

Notably, the county would have to pay any costs or damages incurred by all defendants in the suit, including OakCare physicians and Cambio consultants, should the case move forward, Joseph said.

Once the county filed its response to the complaint Feb. 15, the lawsuit was supposed to have been unsealed and available to the public. The case file was not unsealed until Monday when MediaNews inquired about it through its own legal counsel after unsuccessfully trying to access the suit through public means.

Joseph said he did not know why the case was not unsealed in a timely matter.

A hearing on the county’s request to dismiss the lawsuit is set for April 26.

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